Via The Void
by Annie Coomes
Summary: Doomsday. Except this time Rose fell – Pete never came.


Summary: Doomsday. Except this time Rose fell – Pete never came.

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Via The Void

'Rose! Rose no!' the Doctor screams, she can hear his voice calling after her as she falls. It's as though it's happening in slow motion, her fingers slowly slip, bit by bit, cell by cell, slowly sliding off the handle. She can feel the coolness of the metal fading from underneath her fingers, and she can feel herself falling – not to the floor, but backwards.

Her legs shoot through the air and she hears the scream, the death scream that she can barely recognise as her own. The burning wind stings at her face as she falls, her hair whips her as it flies around, but she doesn't care, she just stares at him. She sees his face torn into a mask of horror. His mouth is twisted and his face taunt, his lips scream and his hands reach out to her. She doesn't reach for it – she knows it is too late. She looks as his hand fades away, a hand that always fitted so perfectly into hers. But now she's falling. She'll never be able to touch that hand again.

She gives him once last glance, her face torn between a smile of reassurance, and a scream of terror, she meets his eyes one last time – preying they tell him everything she ever wanted to say. He saved her, and now she needed to save him; so she looks away. She can't watch him whilst she dies. She can't let him feel helpless.

She turns her head back over her shoulder to face the void. She can see the hole approaching her, its blackness unforgiving as it waits to swallow her. As she falls into it she can feel the cries of 'exterminate' filling the air as the last few Daleks are sucked in around her.

Rose meets his eyes one last time, she can almost see tears staining his cheeks as he cries out to her, and then she feels it clinging to her legs. It is sucking at her, as though she is trying to fit into a hole that is too small. Her feet are sucked in first, followed by her jeans until half her body has disappeared into what she can only fear. A smile almost rests on her face as she can only think of his words

'Via the void'

Now she is sliding, her arms reach out as though she is swimming through the air, but it is no use. She is being sucked under. Her body disappears until just her face is pressing out, her hair is being tugged and she struggles for breath as she whimpers. She knows this is her death.

The Doctor watches from his handle, screaming as she falls into the void. Her body – her perfect human body falls into the unknown. Just before she goes, just before she is lost, her eyes meet his and he can see her bravery. He can see everything he's ever loved in her; he can see her bravery and her strength and her beauty, even in her moments of death. As her face disappears he can't bare it, he can't bare to watch her go. He lets his own hands slip from the metal that has become warm from his perspiration, and he reaches out to her. He can't lose her – not now.

He screams for her once more, preying for her to wait

'Rose!'

The word fades into nothing as she leaves – she has fallen into the void. The next minute happens so slowly it feels like hours to her. She glances around to see only darkness, the darkest black she has ever seen. It seeps into her soul and cascades over her until she closes her eyes for lightness.

Rose has never felt so cold in her life. This is a different kind of cold. The kind that claws at your skin, burning it off as it hungers for warmth. She would shiver but she can't move. She can feel the blood within her body freezing from the cold; she can feel her lips attempting to quiver as the force of the vacuum around her crushes her.

The Doctor falls in beside her. The darkness seeps into him but he has light, the sonic screwdriver has fallen but its light does not show. The void absorbs the light and banishes it. The Doctor keeps his eyes open despite the darkness, despite the cold he looks for her.

Rose opens her eyes. She knows she is about to die. All the breath has left her body and there is nothing for her to suck in, she manages to move her eyes one last time, feeling the blood vessels burst as she does. The blood tries to trickle down her face but it cannot move.

He watches her, his soul heaving with the weight of her death. His hand is still frozen, reaching out to her – as hers is. They are reaching for each other yet they are only millimetres apart.

She finally feels the darkness around her seeping into her; she can feel herself slipping as her fingers slip onto his. She lets herself drift into what she remembered life to be – she let herself remember the running, the hiding, the laughing, the dancing and the loving. She'd always wondered how she would reach her death. And this was the answer. With her hands slipped into his, with the darkness pulling her apart, with words defying her, with tears of blood staining her cheeks, with his words floating round her head

'Via the void'

He felt it as she left. He felt a piece of his hearts die as all the pure life that filled her faded away. He could feel the cold suck of air behind him that told him the rift was closing, if he was quick, if he used his regenerations – he could get out. But he could feel her corpse sticking to his fingers; he could still feel the warmth of her life on his hands. So he waited, he waited as the darkness sucked through him, as it crushed his lungs, as it pulled apart his soul – the whole time his hand in hers. He couldn't leave her like this. Her vibrant body so alone, dieing in the darkness. So he died along side her.

He died once.

He died twice.

He died thrice.

And then he was gone. The last Time Lord and the most extraordinary girl in the world. They had gone down together…via the void.


End file.
